Preface to a Pointman
by MiscellaneousMe07
Summary: "Even he knew it wasn't practical to pine over the ghost of what once was..." She's been lost - a prisoner in the dream world she once helped create. He was determined to bring her home - both for the sake of her sanity, and his. Pre-Inception Arthur/OC


**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**Hello everyone! This is my first time publishing on this site, so I really have no clue what I'm doing yet, and I'm still figuring out how to work everything. I was obsessed with the movie _Inception_ all last summer, and this idea was never intended to turn into a story, but I couldn't get it out of my head. For now, I'm publishing this as a one-shot, but I have some shorter chapters written that could be seen as a follow-up if people are interested in more of the story. **

**I don't own _Inception_ or any of the characters mentioned, except Emily (and the Paulson job). **

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><p>He's walking down an alley - the kind of alley you don't want to find yourself alone in. But at the moment, he really doesn't care. He came here with one aim, and he is not the kind of person to get deterred from the job at hand. This is not the first time Arthur has found himself in this place, and he is fully aware of what he is almost guaranteed to run into. In fact, he's <em>banking<em> on it. He hasn't come looking for a fight, but he is level-headed enough to know that it's downright naive to think they would even consider letting _her_ go without a fight. He'd fought them dozens of times, only to find that she wasn't even there. He couldn't even remember the last time he had caught of glimpse of her face. Usually by the time he had finished fighting them, she had already been taken away. He longed to hear her voice, to see her face, those eyes. This was his last resort, the last place he could ever think to possibly find her. If he didn't make some sort of headway, he was just going to give up. She'd be forever lost to him, and he would just have to resign himself to this fact and get over it. Even he knew it wasn't practical to pine over the ghost of what once was - and he generally prided himself on being practical.

He walked along, trying to stay alert. Since this was his dream, he knew that he would be able to have a certain level of control over what happened, but she had no real control over her mind, and that meant that he wouldn't be able to do much against the unexpected. He found his thoughts drifting to that job - she really had gone all out on the design, there were so many locations within the dream that it had taken him over a year to explore the full realm of her world. The security was getting increasingly hostile, a result, of course, of his frequent intrusion. Although he was the dreamer, she was the subject, and her subconscious was always aware he was meddling and prying. Every time he entered the shared dream, her projections were always the ones that filled it. Naturally, they manifested in the form of Paulson's security, the team that had locked her mind away, and made sure that they were constant in both her conscious and subconscious. His paranoia in these dreams was reaching a breaking point - he knew that soon he wouldn't even be able to enter the dreams without immediate attack due to the fact that he was always finding ways to make himself known, and was always pushing the limits of the design. He had managed to divert security to another location this time - the corner cafe at the other end of the landscape - by setting up some charges immediately upon entering the dream. He had made sure to cause a pseudo-riot, which would hopefully keep the team at bay long enough to explore the alley and surrounding area.

His thoughts were broken by the echo of foot steps behind him. He stopped dead in his tracks, and reached inside his suit jacket to find his gun. He took the silence behind him as indication that the person was well aware of the situation they found themselves in, and he imagined the worst. He paused for a second in an attempt to calm himself, and then quickly turned on his heel, gun raised and ready to fire. He was met with a gun pointed at his face, and his last thought was that this was it, that he had tried, and had failed her. He placed his finger on the trigger, determined to take his attacker down, for if he was indeed going out, he wanted to go out with a bang. He at least owed her that.

The gun aimed at his face dropped to the ground. The impact echoed in the barren alley, and Arthur quickly holstered his gun in response. He was utterly speechless.

"A-A-Arthur…?"

It was her. She was here, in this alley. The last place he had resolved to look. And she was alone. They both stood motionless, unable to believe what they were seeing. He looked at her face and knew at once she wasn't a mirage - she was the real thing. Every aspect of her face was there - from the slight laugh lines at her eyes, to the spattering of freckles across her nose and face. She wasn't beautiful in the conventional sense, and hardly fit the typical prototype for the average woman. She was short, maybe reaching 5'5'' with the proper shoe, with deep brown hair and dark green eyes. Many men would remark she was maybe "cute" or "amiable," but this was generally only due to her smile, which she could easily turn on and use to her advantage (something she had done to him too many times to count). She wore very little make-up, and was dressed in the same outfit she had chosen for that last job - dark wash jeans, tennis shoes, and a Smiths t-shirt that looked worse for the wear. He noted that she had done an excellent job constructing the t-shirt, seeing as it was a replica of one of his. He couldn't help but stare, her appearance was a far cry from what he was used to.

She didn't miss a beat, and immediately ran toward him, wriggling into his arms, a place where, even in the dream world, she fit so well. She felt real, tangible, and Arthur found himself removing a hand from her lower back and placing it in his pocket, feeling the totem that rested there, which, at this point, was weightless, just to get a grip on the current state. She cried into his shoulder and shook in his arms. He did everything he could to remain calm, to keep up his signature Point Man demeanor, but he felt himself slipping, reverting back into something he had locked away long ago, something that only she had ever been witness to. She lifted her head to look at his face. He noted she was studying his features, and he had no doubt that she noticed he had changed, and not for the better.

"You found me. I've been lost for so long, and you've found me." She spoke softly, her hand finding its way to his face, resting on his cheek. He longed to kiss her, to feel her lips on his, to finally break the wall of ice he had built around himself after the Paulson job. But he was a sensible man, and a gentleman at that, and he had a job to do. He pushed all the emotion and romantic entanglement from his mind, and focused on what he needed to do.

"We have to work fast, and we have to get you out of here," he stated, matter-of-factly. She was visibly put off, and a look of deep concern was plastered on her face. "You've changed so much, Arthur... I can't find the light in your eyes." Her remark stung, a pain that made him almost physically ill. As if he didn't get enough flack from the team - Dom and Mal especially - he had to get from the one person who was solely responsible for his complete social and emotional shut-down.

"We really don't have time for this, I'm sure the security team has caught wind I'm here, and I still have to set up the kick. We need to hide, but I can't let you see where I'm leading you. You have no control over the projections, and your knowledge is essentially theirs, which means that -"

"They're coming." She stated, fear and confusion burning in her eyes. A single tear slid down her face, and he realized that she didn't even intend to fight. She'd been stuck for so long that she had become complacent, and had resigned all hope for any sort of future. He wasn't going to let her give up. He needed her with him, up there, or he would forever remain a shell of a person. He'd come this far, dammit, and he refused to think that this would be the last time he ever saw her truly alive.

He grabbed her arm and started running, shouting at her to close her eyes and stay low. He unholstered his gun, and as he did the security team began closing in on their backs. They ran for what seemed like eternity, dodging bullets and working their way to a confined space of some sort. Though she had designed the world, this was Arthur's dream, so he began taking liberties with the design, and her subconscious was not reacting fondly to the changes. Due to her reality state, she could be placed in any dream situation, but the kick had to be carefully orchestrated, seeing as her mind and dream persona had no real home. They had almost made it to a neutral zone, one in which Arthur had begun building a barricade around, when the projections starting trying to pry her from his arms. They were cornered, and Arthur did everything he could to keep her close. He began attempting to close the gap in the alley walls, which substantially slowed the projections down. He kept running as he built and manipulated, until he had secured himself and her into the newly constructed safe zone at the end of the alley.

"I need more time!" He exclaimed, pulling the kick materials from his suit pockets and spilling them onto the floor. He threw his gun down next to him, but kept to close enough to grab in case of a breach. She just stared at him, wide eyed, crying and trembling.

"We don't have time." She stated flatly. "This is it. You need to get yourself out of the dream before they tear you apart. I'm too far gone for saving."

She looked him in the eye, and the goodbye written on her face was too much for him. He had risked his sanity to find her, and now that he had her, letting her go just didn't seem like an option. She walked over to where he was and knelt down beside him. "Please, just go. I can't watch them destroy you." She sobbed, choking on the words he wanted to so desperately hear. He knew the team would, of course, only attack him, which would leave him outstandingly outnumbered in a fight, but he didn't care.

"I need you." He told her, calm in his voice despite his rising concern for both his and her safety. "I came here to bring you back, and I can't leave until that job is done." She broke her sob to emit a laugh, something that caught him off guard.

"Arthur, how many times do I have to tell you to screw professionalism? You have to let me go. I knew the risk that came with the job, I took it, and I got stuck. As much as it hurts me, I have to let you leave. My heart can't take watching you go mad trying to save me when there is no saving to be done. At least, not today." As she spoke, she rose off of the ground, and he noticed she held something in her hand. He knew it wasn't her totem, as it had been removed from her possession in the "real" world when the authorities had shown up. Realization dawned, and the truth slapped him like a ton of bricks. He became acutely aware of the shouts of the projections as they circled the safe zone, just itching for a way in. He heard the walls begin to shudder, clearly indicating that mind was toppling matter.

"Em, please, don't do this. I can still save you. We can find the time."

"I love you, Arthur. I'm so sorry. For everything."

"Emily, I'll come back for you, as soon as I can. Now that I know where you are, I can be prepared, can have a plan, maybe even bring someone else in with me, I'm sure your brother would come."

"Please, A, just stop. I can't do this..." Tears streamed down her face as she raised the gun and pointed it between his eyes. She lifted her gaze to meet his one last time, and Arthur knew that she wasn't playing around. The only woman he had ever loved was pointing a gun at him, remorse and pain radiating from her eyes. He took a deep breath, and as the projections entered the room in a frenzy, he watched as she pulled the trigger and collapsed on the floor.

It all went black.


End file.
